


i fell in love with the world in you

by thewordsthatweareneeding



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordsthatweareneeding/pseuds/thewordsthatweareneeding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She closes her eyes and holds her breath, and she knows, so clearly and so suddenly it terrifies her─</p><p>She loves him.</p><p>(aka a self indulgent drabble about what it takes for rukia to realize her own feelings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i fell in love with the world in you

He's sitting at his desk, trying to catch up on homework. It's the middle of the night. In the faint glow of his desk light, she can see a bruise forming on his chin, bags under his eyes, the hard-pressed curve of his concentrated frown. It hits her then, that he should be asleep. He should have finished his homework hours ago. He should have been at dinner with his family.

Instead, he was running around town, chasing hollows. Fixing her mistakes. Guilt and gratitude surge in Rukia's stomach. She drops her eyes from him and focuses on a point at her feet─ counts off numbers, drills herself on kidou─ anything, anything to derail that train of thought. If she lets it go too far she knows, inevitably, she will end up with a heavy chest and a stinging throat, and hands that twitch for want of use.

She feels Ichigo's eyes turn to her even before he speaks.

"You should go to sleep," he says. "You look tired."

Her face burns. The fact that he concerns himself with her, with what she might want or need, when she's been such a burden ─when she does nothing but ask favors of him, nothing but complicate his life, nothing but leave him overworked and overtired, still awake after midnight with bruises blossoming across his face─ it makes the breath catch in her throat.

He is foolish and perhaps naïve, but he is kind, and strong, and good. She wants to tell him so, but she never says the right thing. Instead, she huffs and meets his eyes.

"Fool, I'm not tired at all." Ichigo rolls his eyes, but he doesn't look irritated.

There's a subdued spark in his eyes that makes her think he might be happy, in some small way. She knows, even just subconsciously, that her face softens in response.

It's when he turns back to his homework and silence settles into the empty air that the full force of her affection hits her. These waves of endearment have been hitting her more and more often as the weeks wear on, and she becomes more and more certain that it cannot last. She looks at him─ she cannot look away from him─ and all at once she is absolutely certain that leaving him will be more difficult than she was prepared to handle. More difficult, perhaps, than she's capable of handling. It's the same feeling that claws into her at school when her classmates are smiling at her, laughing with her, and she knows there will come a time when they won't even remember her name.

But this time it's sharper. Though usually a soft ebb of premature nostalgia that warms her chest and hollows her stomach, this time the moment comes with a biting edge. It knocks the wind out of her and she can't move, can't think, can't make herself look away. She closes her eyes and holds her breath, and she knows, so clearly and so suddenly it terrifies her─

She loves him.

Already he is a part of who she is and the life she wishes she could have. She finds strength in him, in his arrogant grin and the way he rushes forward when he should run away. She craves his safety, his growth, his happiness, more than she craves her own. And she loves him. More than she thought she could.


End file.
